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President Obama and Gov. Romney fought to a narrow Obama win over the economy and a huge Romney loss on Libya.

Both competed strongly last night on the economy, jobs, health care, fair pay, women’s health, taxes and immigration; both got their points and prevented the other from running up the score. On the economy, Romney scored on his assessment that times are tough but too many people disagree with his return to the same old policies that made times tough to begin with. Small advantage Obama.

But where Romney lost the debate was his failure on Libya. Shortly before the debate began, a moving funeral service was held for Ambassador Chris Stevens. His family and friends lauded the assassinated ambassador as an idealistic, smart, engaged, inspiring leader. The Libyan ambassador to the United States openly apologized for failing to protect Stevens and praised the diplomat as a hero to the Libyan people for his support of their revolution. To go from that service to watching a debate where Romney seized on the president's September 12 Rose Garden denunciation of "acts of terror" as somehow not denouncing "acts of terror" was jarring as much for its inaccuracy as for its insensitivity.

Romney seemed too enamored of his gotcha moment to realize that he had not only failed to tell the truth - the transcript reads “acts of terror” not “apology” - but he missed the moment for a larger discussion of how to engage in North Africa in this post-Arab Spring world. All of us who actually want to know what happened in Libya must await the facts before we comment on them. We must take a lesson from the Bush team's erroneously blaming Saddam Hussein for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that casting blame for this year's Sept. 11 attacks must be done after we know the facts and not before. As next week's debate on foreign policy looms, let us hope cooler and wiser heads prevail in the debate prep so that we get a clearer agenda for national security, foreign policy, and veterans.

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